The climatic changes resulting from the rise of greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere are becoming an increasingly important concern to those who regulate the operation and flue gas output of fossil-fuel combustion-based power plants. Unregulated and uncontrolled fossil fuel burning power plants have been responsible for a significant portion of this pollution. As pollution regulations have become more stringent, processes and equipment have been installed to prevent the uncontrolled exhaust of particulate matter, such as SOx, and NOx. Further, the reduction of mercury (Hg) in exhausted gases has also been proposed, and operations are being developed and installed for its control. Significantly, the carbon dioxide (CO2) stream, from combustion in such plants, has been found to be the more massive constituent of pollution, larger than any other pollutant stream, and so will now require a significant increase in effort and cost to bring under control.
Unfortunately, it has been found that including CO2 capture devices and processes to the present day series of separate processes used in pollution control and abatement, which are dedicated to the removal of single pollutant types, has proved to be prohibitively costly.